


The Disastrous Encounters of a Reluctant Alpha beta Dave with an Omega Troll

by Spacefille



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Consent Issues, Dubious Consent, Explicit Language, F/M, Human/Troll Hybrids, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, POV Second Person, Rape/Non-con Elements, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-01-08 02:35:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacefille/pseuds/Spacefille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His face changes from confusion, to shock and then outright terror. </p><p>He absconds.</p><p>You wait until he’s gone completely before you move. You’re pretty shocked too, though you don’t show it at all. Your face is carefully blank. Inside you’re screaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I read one too many Sherlock alpha/beta/omega fanfics and decided that Homestuck deserved one too. Please heed the warnings on this fanfic. It’s fics like these that make me consider creating a pseudonym for my username, I just wish I didn’t enjoy this universe so much!

.

Your name is Dave Strider and you’re an alpha.

So, incidentally, is your Bro. This would be okay, except for the fact that he has a tendency to want to beat the shit out of you, and he brings home omegas regularly for fucking. He never keeps them around or anything but once you hit about 12 years old or so the scent in the apartment drives you nuts. You end up locking yourself in your room and barricading the door so that you don’t go out to investigate and invariably get your ass kicked by your Bro for even looking at whoever the lucky guy or gal he’s got today is.

At that age you couldn’t care less about the fact that you’re an alpha or a beta or an omega for that matter, though you’re fairly sure that life would be a little bit difficult for you if you were the last one. You have no interest in breeding with anyone, which is fine, you’re too young for that kind of crap anyway. No, life is much easier if you just ignore all three variances of the two genders, including your own, and continue your life like normal.

The first thing you notice about the trolls when you get to the meteor is that they’re all omegas. Every single one of them. Their scents are a bit different than humans, true, but the underlying smell is still there. If they were human they’d be fertile as fuck and probably already dealing with their first couple heats.

Rose can’t smell it, mostly because she’s a beta. Beta’s are the luckiest, you think. You wish you were a beta. They never have to deal with all the sex bullshit and babies and whatever. Well, unless they want to.

So now you’re on a god damn spaceship with four alien omegas and you’re forced to smell them every fucking day.

Thank god none of them are in heat. You hope they don’t ever go into heat. EVER.

Of course you don’t always get what you want, which is to say, you never get what you want.

You turn fifteen without incident, except for the fact that you notice you’re a bit more prow-ly lately, agitated. You’re fucking Terezi, which takes the edge off a bit, and she seems to love it. You’re pretty sure she’s fucking the Juggalo troll as well because sometimes you can smell him on her pretty strong. Because he’s another omega, your urge to fight and claim what is “yours” is kept tightly in check. You hadn’t realized this back on Earth because you were too young to think of it, but apparently omegas fucking other omegas is a-okay.  Who knew?

You also can tell exactly when one of them goes into heat. You walk into a room where Terezi and Karkat appear to be in the middle of an argument and the scent hits you like a slap to the face. It’s just like when your Bro brought home friends, except for the fact that it’s even worse now, probably because you’re older. You also can tell which of the two are in heat, and it’s not the one you’re screwing around with.

Karkat turns away from Terezi and faces you, his face scrunched up into a confused grimace. He glares at you, not that that’s totally unexpected, and sniffs the air. You watch his face change. His eyes droop and he actually moans softly. He takes a couple stumbling steps towards you before he manages to catch himself. His face changes from confusion, to shock and then outright terror.

He absconds.

You wait until he’s gone completely before you move. You’re pretty shocked too, though you don’t show it at all. Your face is carefully blank. Inside you’re screaming.

Terezi takes one look towards you, sniffs the air as well and then collapses into gales of laughter. The thing with having a blind alien girlfriend is she can’t tell your face is blank. All she can do is smell the air and you’re sure your evil traitorous body is mass producing hormones at the moment. Nothing could be any more freakin’ obvious.

.

She also seems to enjoy the fact that you’re an alpha, especially today. You lie back on the floor with her curled up against you, practically purring, and inspect the ceiling. You find out what the argument was about, apparently fucking each other will make their heat last a day or so less. So two days of suffering instead of three. Terezi wasn’t interested.

You know for a fact that if _you_ fuck him his heat will be over in a couple of hours, if not sooner. If he’s anything like humans that is. And, well, that makes your heart race, so it’s a possibility. 

You try not to think about it and fail completely. Normally your interest in being around or touching Karkat would be in the negative digits. Now it’s right up near 100%. Which sucks and is yet another reason you’d really rather have been born a beta. It’s much easier to maintain and feign disinterest when you’re not being controlled by something as stupid as rampant hormones.

It doesn’t solve your immediate problem. You have an omega in heat. Terezi is exhausted, she’s already dozing against you.  Your anatomy isn’t going to let you alone until he’s done his heat or has been fucked by an alpha, (and thus done). It’s the entire reason why they have safe houses for omegas back on Earth. For three days every three months or so they check themselves into these buildings that pretty much make Fort Nox look like child’s play. They’re all run by other omegas and betas. That’s so people, evil terrible alphas, don’t end up forcing them.

Yet another reason why you really wish you weren’t a fucking alpha. The list is quite large.

Then again, as your brother proved many times when growing up, not all omegas saw the safe houses as necessary and pretty much enjoyed being fucked into the living room carpet. Granted they were probably fixed so they didn’t give off quite as much hormones and end up quite as pregnant…

You get another wiff of Karkat’s scent and wonder how the hell it is still so strong when the troll is probably halfway across the meteor by now. “How pissed do you think Karkat’d be if I offered to help him,” you ask, half despite yourself.

Terezi wakes up enough to dissolve into cackling.

“You should go ask,” she says finally.

“I’m not sure he’d be so happy if I did,” you reply.

“Oh no, he’d love it, trust me,” she says with some more cackling.

You’re fairly sure she’s wrong.

.

You last a whole half a day. You’re actually kind of proud of your will power. You also know this is a really bad baaaad idea as you scent him out.

He’s in the room he’s claimed as his own. He’s totally and completely butt fuck naked, writhing on the floor next to one of the couches he’s got set up against one of the walls. One of his hands is firmly between his legs, inside himself, thrusting slowly and his weird alien dick is bobbing in time. His entire lower half appears to be covered in his slightly tinted bodily fluid.

He’s in a bad state. He also smells so fucking _good_.

Your head swims. Your dick is more than a little interested, it’s throbbing almost painfully against the inside of your pants.

You take a step into the room. He looks up at you and reacts, scrambling off of the floor. He pushes himself right to the back of the room, a hand over his privates, and you’re fairly sure one of his hands is still high up inside himself.

He is staring at you again, his face a paler grey than usual. “No,” he said quietly, and that would be the fear on his face. He braces himself as you step closer. “No!” he exclaims. He sniffs the air again and you can see how his dick jerks and even more obvious, how more of that liquid between his legs escapes from between his fingers. He moans, eyes growing half lidded as he pants, fingers working himself faster.

“I think I can make your heat go away in just a couple hours,” you say finally.

He gives you a look that’s only about half there.

“We got you guys on Earth too. You get fucked, your heat goes away. You just get this over with quickly and you don’t end up driving me to the point that I might do something without asking permission first because you smell _really fucking strong_ right now,” it’s not meant to be a threat, rather a statement of fact. You also know if that if you just took him without asking he’d enjoy it too much to protest that badly, but the thought leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Permission first. Always get permission first. They pound that into your heads at school. Always walk with a buddy, keep a beta friend nearby to pull you out of an unwanted situation. Call the helpline for the omega in distress. It sounds so much easier when it’s at school and all theoretical shit. This is a lot more than you ever expected to have to deal with.

Fuck, you shoulda brought Rose. You grab onto something to steady yourself.

He looks caught somewhere between terrified and suspicious. Finally he opens his mouth and manages to get something out. “I don’t want…”

You don’t want to hear the rest of that, so you interrupt him. “I know,” you reply. “Karkat please,” and now you’re forcing this. You feel absolutely fucking terrible. 

He swallows and lets out this short little whimpering sound. He turns his head away. “It doesn’t even matter if I say no, does it,” he says, and he’s not even asking. He looks back at you, and there is a hint of tears to go with this hard, determined glint to his eyes. “Fine,” he says. He removes his hand, and his fingers slide out of his troll vagina with a wet sound. Suddenly fluid is coating his thighs and you have to bite back a moan as the scent hits you even harder.

Your resolve crumbles.

You’re across the room to him in a few short strides, peeling him away from the wall with one hand and shoving him to the floor as you go for the waistband of your pants with the other. He tries to push up again, hands planted against your chest now, fisting in the fabric. He sees between your legs and his eyes widen.

You’re a fair deal larger than he is. Your dick is as hard as a rock and the base is wider than it has ever been before. You know that’s because of the heat, and because he’s an omega. You need to fuck him, slide your dick into him and take him, hard, fast, now now _now_ …

The terrified look on his face returns. “You’re too big, you’re not going to fit…” he trails off into a whine that breaks off into a throaty scream as you wrench one of his legs aside and push up into him. Yeah, there is resistance, but it gives after a couple thrusts. He’s struggling against you now, claws digging into your arms, drawing shaky breaths that hitch in his chest.

With what little brain power you got left you feel like the most horrible person that ever existed.

The endorphins kick in only seconds after you’re inside of him, his omega instincts taking over. He stops struggling. You watch as his eyes dull and become glazed. He relaxes - just goes absolutely fucking limp as you grip his hips and lift him up. You adjust the angle and keep going, your own instincts taking control. You’re barely aware of what you’re doing as you still suddenly, gripping him tightly, holding him down as far as he will go. He lets out a throaty groan and you can feel yourself start to swell.

Knotting, you’re not going to be able to get out of him until you’re done coming and that could take a while. He starts letting out little “ah, ah, ah” sounds as you begin to thrust again in earnest, enough to slide your swelling knot up and down inside of him. The ahs increase in volume and finally hit a peak when you’ve feel like you can’t possibly get any bigger. He jerks, thrashing suddenly, and there is a rush of fluid around your cock.

That sets you off. You stop moving completely; just hold him as he gasps for breath. You can feel yourself coming inside of him, your human fluid mixing with his.

The worst part is your head clears way before you’re done. Now you’re stuck together and you glance down at him. His eyes are tightly shut, even as he shudders through another orgasm. When that is done he kind of goes limp again and his arms come up as he curls in on himself. It’s a futile defensive gesture and you see it for what it is. He wants to get away but he knows he can’t.

You are struck with an overwhelming urge to take care of him. You know that's just because you're an alpha, but you’re not about to resist, not when you feel so badly about this entire situation. You nuzzle his hair, stroke sweaty black bangs back from his forehead.

His eyes crack open and he gives you this disappointed look. It’s not so much as accusing as weary, like he expected you to hurt him and you did. You feel even more shitty than you did before. Now you know why omegas get places to escape to. You can’t do anything much except pet his hair, scratching between his horns and murmuring nonsense words at him. His eyes slid shut and he leans his head back, exposing his neck and oh… you have to heavily resist the urge to bite. Instead you watch as he shudders through another orgasm, and the involuntary shocks that rock him afterwards.

“Shh,” you say, pressing your lips against his hair. “It’s okay. Kar. Karkat. Shh. Everything is going to be alright now, I promise, I promise…” the words come out without you meaning them too, you don’t even know what you’re saying any longer. It seems to help because he lets out another shudder and finally goes limp against you. His eyes are half lidded and starting to glaze over again when you soften enough that you can even contemplate pulling out. The pained whimper he lets out when you finally tug yourself free makes your heart wrench. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry…” everything is starting to wear off and you feel terrible. You stroke his hair some more and then, when he hasn’t moved any, pick him up. He either weighs less than you expect… either that or it’s your hormones lending you the extra strength to make moving him easier. You take him over to the couch, laying him out carefully. He watches you through half-lidded eyes as you go to find blankets to cover him.

He’s asleep before you even get back to the couch. His legs are absolutely coated, both with his fluids and your own, his nook is swollen and inflamed, something you assume will go down once his heat is finished. You give up trying to cover him and instead go off to find something to wash him with.

He is washed and dried and deeply asleep while practically buried under blankets a short time later. His scent has faded almost completely now that he’s clean… even you didn’t expect fucking him would take effect so fast. You want to leave him now… take off to the other side of the meteor and never see him again - for his benefit, not your own - when you discover another part about being an alpha that takes you quite by surprise.

You don’t want to leave him.

Instead you want to start building a nest. You’ve gathered up everything soft in the room and laid it around him before you realize what you’re doing. You mentally curse at yourself and force yourself to leave the room this time.

That lasts all of five minutes. Until you find yourself in one of the replicator rooms, trying your best to make the machine produce food.

And not any sort of food, troll food. Food you know Karkat likes.

Your name is Dave Stider and you’re a piece of shit, you think to yourself as the replicator attempts to turn out the food you want it to make. You’re also pretty sure you’ve totally and completely fucked up your life beyond repair.

Because there is no way Karkat is going to do anything but hate you when he comes too.

.

You can’t do anything but wait. The food rests by his head. The blankets surround him in a cottony halo. You watch his breathing and wonder how you became that creepy guy in about half a day.

When he does come to in a flutter of dark lashes you hold your breath. You’re still holding it when he tries to sit up and fails. That launches you into action without much conscious thought on your part, you are over to him and holding him up with gentle hands in about two seconds. He starts at that, then stares up at you and you flinch.

This is what you’re dreading. You expect the absolute worst, starting at ‘what have you done to me’ to ‘I’m going to cut your fucking nuts off’ combined with some colorful variant ‘get the fuck away from me’. Instead he freezes. Outright panic momentarily crosses his face and his eyes dart to and fro as if looking for a way to get away and no, that’s worse than anything he could have said. You drop him instantly, letting him fall back into the blankets with a solid thump that looks like it might have hurt him. He lets out a small cry and instead of trying to get back up he lays there for a moment before he curls in on himself. His arms come up, covering his head. Defensive, he’s scared. He’s scared of _you_.

“Stop… oh my God. I’m sorry. Shit, I’m so fucking sorry,” the words flow from your mouth like the bile. “Look, I’ll go. I’m going, see?” you step backwards a bunch of times until you’re actually out of the room, and then you abscond as fast as you possibly can.

.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Karkat POV

.

You’re petrified. Absolutely and completely pants-shittingly terrified out of your mind, and the more time you spend away from Dave, the worse it gets.

You’ve only seen him once since the entire thing happened, and that time you fled before he could do or say anything. That had to be at least a perigee ago, you weren’t really showing yet.

He’s not coming after you either, which doesn’t help you or your mental state any. You haven’t seen or heard anything from him since bumping into him accidentally but you know how this shit works. You’ve read things, watched things too. It’s the deep dark part of troll romance no one ever wants to talk about. Really, because who wants anything to do with an archaic method of reproduction that leaves one party the pail slave of another, forced to endure the unnatural pain of laying eggs like an honorary mother grub? Forced to endure unwanted pailing and grubs that will just get eaten or worse, until the owner gets bored of his acquisition and kills them. No quadrants to hold them back, the slave troll is nothing. You’re nothing. Dave thinks you’re nothing.

You’re sure of that, especially the more he stays away from you. You’re not about to go wandering off to find him to reremind him of your existence. Even as your stomach grows, which is just as terrifying as everything else. You just retreat further into the meteor. You’re not going anywhere near him. Never.

It’s dark in the room you’ve settled in. You’re surrounded by blankets and junk and you’re not very inclined to move or clean up after yourself. You watch yet another fucked up movie on the subject, while curled around your husktop, hand pressed to the generous curve of your protruding belly. The sea dweller gets a sniff of the lowblood in heat and approaches, smiling his shark toothed grin. You shudder. It’s always a sea dweller – a male one – always, they’re the only ones that can make other trolls bare grubs if they fuck them during heat. It’s what tipped you off about Dave, that day, when you tried to get anyway and completely failed to do anything but open up your legs to the insufferable human. You never really noticed how Dave smelt before, but that day he smelt like someone you knew well enough, before Kanaya decided to take a chainsaw to his torso. He smelt like Eridan.

If you knew… if you only **_knew_**. You would have taken precautions. Found the deepest darkest part of the meteor and locked yourself in it. Everyone knows you don’t go anywhere near the sea when you’re in heat. That’s a good way to get yourself killed. Pailed and then killed. Forced to bare grubs and then killed.

None of these movies go that way of course. The low blood in the movie moans and spreads his legs for the sea dweller. Your stomach turns as they start to pail and you have to look away, burying your face into your arm. You know how this will go, same as almost every other movie on the subject. They’ll gloss over the grub part, they always do, it’s just too weird to deal with, or they’ll show them sneaking the grubs into the caverns and dropping them with the other thousands of grubs roaming around. Then they’ll go red, engage in a whirlwind romance, which is so fucking untrue it hurts. It’s all complete bullshit, it’s…

You let out a small gasp as a stab of pain hits your abdomen. You turn over and sit up, staring down at your stomach. The pain hits again and you let out a small whine, curling in on yourself. Sweat breaks out across your brow. You don’t know what’s happening, and you scramble to your feet. The pain hits again and you sway dangerously, knocking the husktop to the side. The trolls on the screen are still pailing, the growls and hisses and slap of flesh against flesh makes your stomach lurch. You kick at your husktop and it skitters across the floor.

Something is wrong, you know that much, your body isn’t cut out for grubs… why does it hurt so bad? You let out a low pitched whine that grows higher in pitch as you stumble, both hands to the unnatural curve of your stomach now as you fall forward. You end up on the floor again, face down, legs tucked under you and with your forehead pressed to the ground.

.

That’s how Kanaya finds you, what feels like ages later. Your movie has long ended and the pain has faded and you still haven’t moved an inch.

You snarl at her halfheartedly as she sniffs the air and shakes her head. “Karkat,” she says. She comes over and stands above you and looks down at you with a dainty frown on her face. “I do believe you are causing yourself quite a lot of unnecessary suffering. You should really talk to him.”

“Fuck off,” you say. You don’t say more than that, that’s all you can manage right now.

The frown grows. She crouches down and reaches out, turning you over onto your back with ease. She lets out a little gasp of surprise. Your shirt has rucked up, exposing your stomach. She extends a hand, stopping just short of touching it. “They’re getting bigger.”

“Wow, Kanaya, you’re a fucking genius, I never would have noticed!” you gasp back at her, and the pain has returned, mild now but still present, a constant unhappy throb. “Now kindly fuck off like I asked and let me die in peace.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she tsks. She stands again, then takes a good look around the room. You know how it looks, completely unkempt because you haven’t been arsed to try to take care of yourself while you’ve been hiding here. “I am going to go get him,” she says decisively.

That causes the same prick of fear to go through you as you did when you first smelt Dave ages ago. “No! Fuck, no, please, don’t you even dare, he’ll fucking kill me…”

“You are being completely irrational,” she says. “He is not going to hurt you.”

You give her your best ‘are you shitting me?’ look. “Look at what he’s done to me!” You exclaim. “Oh, no, he hasn’t done anything at all, you know, just pailed me and – uuugh.” Sudden pain cuts you off. You curl up, and roll onto your side.

She’s down in a crouch in an instant. Her hand presses up against your abdomen. She makes a soft surprised sound.

“How long have you been feeling this way?” she asks.

“What way, you’re going to have to be a little more specific!” You snarl at her.

“They’re coming,” she says, and her eyes are wide. She gets back to her feet. “I will bring him.”

No amount of screaming at her to get the hell back here and help you and not _get fucking Dave_ will make her return.

.

Pain. And fear. When you see him it only somewhat registers that he looks absolutely fucking terrible – white as a sheet with gaunt cheeks – before complete illogical fear takes over you start to try to scramble away from him.

He kind of twitches for a moment, then tightens his hands into fists and strides towards you. You hit a wall and go down, arms around your stomach. The urge you feel to protect your unborn grubs is frightening in its intensity. Somewhere in the back of your head you’re aware of the fact that you can’t fight, you’re too weak and in too much pain to defend yourself, and he can’t fucking die anyway. You see out of the corner of your eye that he’s still approaching and you do something that even you don’t expect. It’s a split second decision but you’re on your feet, and a second later you throw yourself into his arms.

“What – Karkat,” his voice is rough as he catches you, stumbles a bit and refinds his footing.

“Shhoosh,” you manage to get out. Your head is spinning and you can feel the slide of sweat down the side of your face. Even so, you get a hand up and pap his pale cheek. “Shhh-“

Pain wracks you again and you shake violently. His grip on you tightens, preventing you from sliding to the ground. Your desperate bid to save your life is failing, you can feel it. The sea dweller is going to gut you, here and now, your mutant blood will spill all over, freshly hatched grubs wiggling and trying to gasp their last breaths as they twist on the ground. You let out a tight desperate whine and try to raise your hand again but the pain is too intense. Your vision goes white and fades and you’re only vaguely aware of the sound of someone screaming – you – and the feel of liquid warmth sliding down your thighs.

You pull away from Dave and stumble back, staring down at yourself. The color against the grey of your pants is deep, condemningly red.

You look back up at him and the shock on your own face is mirrored by the horror on his. “Karkat,” he exclaims and he reaches out to you, grabbing you by the arms. He pushes you down, he’s going to kill you – you know it –and then his hands are fumbling at your pants.

Your mind stutters to a stop. You don’t understand. He wants to pail you? He’s got your pants down now, exposing you to the cool of the room. Pailing is better than death and it might save the grubs. You’re so fucking confused nothing makes sense but you try to help and part your legs anyway.

He doesn’t seem to mind but he’s doing it wrong, putting his hand between your legs instead. His cursing under his breath is not a sign of being pleased and you feel another dart of fear. When he pulls his hand away again you see the bright glint of red on his finger tips and then you remember – you’re bleeding. You’re in so much fucking pain nothing is making sense and more and things are becoming increasingly disjointed. “The grubs,” you manage to get out, or at least you think you do.

“Yeah, I know,” he says. He reaches towards your face with his hand, the one with blood on it, you don’t think he’s thinking clearly either. He presses his palm to your forehead. He slides it down the side of your face and pats your cheek and suddenly the pain recedes, just a bit. He’s papping you. It’s enough that your world comes back into sharper focus, and you can feel yourself calming down.

He’s not going to kill you, at least not yet, the papping proves it. You turn towards his hand despite yourself, nosing against his palm, drawing comfort from the human sea dweller. He pats you again and again, while staring between your legs with consternation.

“Your stomach is spasming,” he says.

“Oh,” you reply. You raise your head and stare down at it. So it is, and you’re wracked with another wave of pain. You can’t hold back your whimpers and suddenly his eyes are on your face again.

His eyes… he lost his shades. You must have knocked them off of him accidently. When? You can’t remember. His eyes are really quite horrific… bright red, like your blood. They’re beautiful. He’s beautiful.

“You’re beautiful,” you blurt, before you have to pant and cry out in pain again.

He turns pink all over his face… stupid weird human skin, why does it do that? “I’m sorry,” he says, and you think he’s replying to the fact you’re in pain and suffering. He lunges towards you suddenly, leaning down and pressing close, his lips to your forehead. “I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, Karkat,” he says. “I tried to leave you alone but Kanaya said you were in labor and it was a matter of life and death. I don’t know what to do, dude, but I think you’ve got to push. Can you do that for me? Push?”

The words are foreign to you. “Push?” you reply, ignoring his rush of apologies. “Push… what?”

“Push down, against the pain? I think,” he doesn’t sound like he knows what to do either, you tell him as much.

You try it anyway, you have nothing to lose. He holds you close as you do it, practically laying down against you, nose pressed to your temple. “That’s it,” he says as you bare down and push.

Something shifts. Something else gives. You feel something move and you scream again.

.

It’s agony. Hour after hour of it. You’re exhausted. He’s exhausted. He doesn’t shut up, just keeps telling you to push and also that he’s proud of you, so proud. He reaches between your legs every so often and does stuff you can’t see. You don’t know how long it lasts. You’re ragged.

Kanaya comes in at some point. You can tell by the look on her face that something is wrong. She looks so sad as she brings blankets over where the pile of grub eggs should be, off where you can’t quite see.

“What’s wrong?” you beg to know. “Please, what’s wrong with the grubs?”

“Nothing,” she says, without catching your eye. “Karkat, you must concentrate.”

“Push,” Dave says for the thousandth time.

“I AM PUSHING,” you scream at them both. And you are, you are.

.

You’re half catatonic when the pain finally fades. Dave leaves your side to go over to where Kanaya is. You try to struggle up on your elbows. You just want to see the eggs. The two engage in a rapid conversation under their breath, whispering so you can’t hear what they’re saying.

“I want to see,” you say stubbornly.

Dave glances up at you and you’ve seen guilty expressions like that before. He exchanges a look with Kanaya and she nods.

Dave flinches before turning to you. “They’re dead,” he says, his face impassive.

Your blood pusher feels like it’s stopped. “You killed them,” you say tonelessly. You should have known… and now your life is not far behind. You tense up, ready for a fight, even though you have no idea how you’d even get the energy to get to your feet, let alone…

“NO!” Dave exclaims loudly, and looks scandalized. He recovers quickly. “No, Karkat, I would _never_. They… they’re just…” he glances at Kanaya and she nods again, but there is hesitation there.

Dave reaches out to her and she passes something in a bundle of cloth back to Dave. Dave gets to his feet and comes over, holding it out to you.

You stare at it. It’s not an egg at all. As far as you can tell it is a hatched grub, except it’s still extremely small, able to fit in the cupped palms of your hands. Instead of six grub legs, it has two arms and two legs, like a human baby’s would be. There are no horns on its tiny head either. The grub is completely still, eyes closed. It looks like it is asleep but you know better.

“All of them?” you manage to get out. Your throat is threatening to close up. You don’t know why you’re getting this upset over grubs, but right now your thinkpan isn’t being very rational.

Dave nods slowly and the look on his face is grim. “Complications with compatibility, I think. I should have known humans and trolls wouldn’t work. My fault.” He pauses. “All of this is my fault,” he says, and he looks wretched.

“Well, yeah,” you say. You struggle up again. Now that you’re sitting up all the way you can see Kanaya has them all in a row, five of all told, and is carefully toweling liquids from their tiny bodies. Some of them look more human, some of them look more like grubs. One even has thick chunks of what looks like egg shell about it, and it is the most grub looking one of the lot. It’s this one that Kanaya is toweling off currently, brushing bits of shell from its tiny tuffs of black hair.

The grub makes a tiny coughing noise and Kanaya freezes.

You freeze too, and Dave is the one who moves, taking the grub from Kanaya, towel and all. Kanaya only offers up a tiny protest, she’s still shocked.

“Baby,” Dave says, his voice high pitched and strained. He is running the towel over the baby’s face, opening up its tiny mouth and pushing a finger into it, scooping up liquid and gunk. “Come on, baby, come on little dude, don’t fail me now, I know you’re in there, come on!” he smacks the grub in the middle of its little grub body with an open palm.

Another cough from the grub. And then another. The grub spits up a whole bunch of reddish clear fluid and then opens its mouth and wails.

Dave raises his head and gives you a look of pure unadulterated joy. He looks like a mess, his normally carefully combed white locks of hair are all over the place. His eyes are so expressive without the shades. He looks down again, the grub is more than certainly alive, all six little black grub legs flailing around wildly, and the wail is increasing in pitch. Kanaya looks relieved before going back to the rest of them, determined to clean them all despite their stillness. Your only focus is on the wailing one. You hold out your arms to it and Dave comes over, settling in right beside you so he can hand you the grub without being too far away.

The grub looks like you. You stare down at it and it stops wailing long enough to stare up at you. That lasts a whole two seconds before the grub turns its head and embeds a row of pinprick sharp teeth into your thumb. You let out a loud screech of protest.

Dave’s laughter is unexpected and hoarse and glad. You curse and try to toss the grub from yourself, only to have Dave grab at it. It lets go of its hold on your thumb the moment Dave touches it. “Be nice to the baby,” Dave admonishes you as he holds it to himself protectively. The grub chirps and clicks at the human.

Kanaya is watching you both with sad eyes. “I am sorry that this wasn’t more successful, she says.

Dave sighs and shakes his head. “We’re probably lucky to just have one,” he says. You watch as he holds the chirping grub, running his finger down the center of its pudgy little body. That makes it chirp and coo more. It’s not long before it starts to move its head, taking in the room. It’s tiny grub eyes focus on you. It makes a couple inquiring chirping noises, like it didn’t just try to take a hunk of your skin.

Dave hesitates for a moment, then carefully hands you the grub again. This time it doesn’t bite you, just keeps on making inquisitive noises, blinking up at you. Its little red body squirms in your hands. You’ve never willingly been this close to a newly hatched grub in your entire life. It’s giving you flashbacks to when you were in the game.

Dave watches you for a moment before getting to his feet again. “What are you going to do with them?” he asks Kanaya. He goes over to her, crouching down next to her and the deceased grubs.

“I do not know of your human rituals when it comes to such things,” she says with consternation. “On Alternia deceased grubs are turned into a multitude of useful household products. Also grub flesh is quite delicious and I know of a number of culinary dishes we could try…”

Dave looks like he’s going to be sick. “That’s disgusting,” he says.

“It is a fact of early grub life,” Kanaya replies. She doesn’t sound terribly pleased about it either. “Millions are born each year, only a handful will reach adulthood.”

“These are MY BABIES you’re talking about,” Dave replies. His voice cracks as he speaks.

“So we will not eat them,” Kanaya agrees with a nod.

“No, we’re not going to eat _any_ babies,” he says. There is something steely in his voice, and Kanaya picks up on it. She inclines her head, just a tad, and gets to her feet. She picks up a spare blanket that hasn’t been used, coming over to you and dropping it over your bare and ridiculously blood splattered legs. She then holds out her hands. You take the hint and hand her the grub. It hisses at her, a healthy grub sound and she smiles widely as she tickles it playfully, before handing it back to you.

“I will go,” she says finally, standing again. “If you need anything…” You shake your head. You’re exhausted, happily not in pain anymore and it doesn’t look like anything is going to happen to you or your surviving grub, especially not the way Dave reacted to Kanaya’s suggestion of consuming the dead ones. You glance over at Dave. He’s sitting in front of the deceased human troll grub babies and he doesn’t look up from them. She hesitates only a moment more before giving you a nod and elegantly leaving the room.

You’re fucking exhausted. You watch as Dave just sits there. He’s concentrating on the babies, occasionally he reaches out and touches them, but he doesn’t move them. After a long while he sniffs and gets up. He brings another blanket over and one by one covers the tiny bodies.

When he looks up at you again you see that he’s been crying silently, there are clear water tracks on his cheeks. He ducks his head again and wipes his face, then goes for his shades, pulling them over his eyes. Suddenly he’s composed again, not a hint of emotion to be found. You feel a lick of fear hit you again and you hold the grub to your chest, eyeing him suspiciously, especially when he decides to walk towards you.

He stops cold a few feet away, then sighs. “I suppose we still have some stuff to work out,” he says.

“I won’t be your pail slave,” you snap.

“I… what?” he says.

“And if you think I’m going to let you anywhere near my quadrants, think again,” you continue.

“Oh god, not quadrants,” he pulls a face. “Karkat, you know I don’t give a shit about quadrants. And I don’t want you as slave anything.”

You glare at him and glance to the side. Your sickles are across the room, there is no way you’re going to be able to get to them in time. And, speaking of time, he still can’t fucking die, so there’s no real point…

You clench the squirming grub closer to you and give him an unhappy look.

“Look, Karkat,” he says as he crouches down in front of you. “I know this is my fault and you don’t want anything to do with me, but I just can’t leave you again. It’s tearing me the fuck apart. And you have my baby now, please let me take care of you both. Or try to. It won’t make up for what I’ve done, but I’d at least like a chance to try…”

“Do I even have a choice,” you ask, bitterly.

He flinches and frowns at you. “I stayed away from you for like two months, yes of course you have a choice.”

“Funny, I don’t remember having one before, you just took what you wanted,” why are you even trying to provoke him, it’s like you don’t value your life at all. The grub in your hands tries to burrow closer to you, making muffled noises into your shirt.

He scowls. “I fucked up, okay?” he says. “I know I fucked up. I should have had Rose tie me down or something, I was an idiot and I didn’t and now look at you, you’re a mess and it’s all my fault. But please Karkat, please, just give me a chance. All I want to do is take care of you and the baby and I’ll do anything, I promise, even if you tell me not to ever touch you again, I won’t. Just let me be near you and try to be a good father to the baby.”

“Lusus, grub,” you correct.

“… what?” he replies, obviously confused.

“Never mind,” you say with a small tired hiss. “Fine. Fine, whatever, I don’t care. Do what you want,” you’re done with this conversation, you just want to lie down and sleep and never get up again. You lay back on the cold floor and pat the grub on it’s warm backside. It seems tired too, it lets out a few chirps and puts its head down on your chest.

Dave watches you, or at least you assume he is watching you, you’re looking at the ceiling. A few minutes of ignoring him later you hear him get up and quietly leave the room.

It’s only after you hear him go that you let yourself have a small mental break down, hyperventilating as you sit up and try to wipe the blood from your legs with the blanket. It’s a lost cause. You finally give up and kick the blanket from you, then get up and stumble to a corner of the room. There you curl into a ball and shut your eyes, grub still held tightly in your arms.

.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dave POV

.

You don’t think you’ll be able to forget any of this evening for a very long time. Every time you shut your eyes – every time you BLINK – you see Karkat, staring at you with an expression of terror on his face, backing away from you, arms held protectively around his enormous stomach. You did that, your brain keeps screaming at you. You’ve damaged him beyond reasonable repair, no wonder your attempts at convincing him that all you want to do is take care of him and the baby was met with hostility. After what you put him through? Because let’s be honest here, you raped him and then he was forced to give birth to your babies, there isn’t much else you could have done to him that would be worse than that.

The worst thing for _you_ is that he smells right. He smells like he’s _yours_ which is the stupidest thing even because he’s obviously not. But he does though, when you were holding him and he was screaming and sweating and terrified out of his mind all he smelt like was… home. Like you belong there, with him, holding him, soothing away the fear, whispering reassuring things that will just make him scream and swear louder.

But you left him there, hurting, covered in blood, and holding a baby with dead babies only a few feet away, you need to go back there. At very least you have to deal with the bodies. It’s something you don’t want to do but you have to do it, you can’t stop thinking about them. You just left them in there, covered with a blanket of course, but still there, with Karkat, who probably can’t move very easily, what kind of horrible monster are you?

It takes you a day. Rose comes by. You can tell she judges you, just by the way she looks you over. Kanaya probably filled her in on gritty details. “Oh, Dave,” is all she says, and she offers you a drink out of a replicated cup. You turn her down briefly before changing your mind and slamming it back. It burns on the way down, nearly makes you choke, and tingles flow through you limbs.

Two drinks later, you can’t stand up very well. Three and you feel like absolute shit, and your gut is roiling. You haven’t eaten anything substantial in days, and it burns like hell when it comes back up.

.

The next day you go back. First you get the replicator to make you something that resembles food, and coffee and force that down before getting some of that grubloaf stuff the trolls eat for him. (You wondered if it was actually made of grubs back on Trollopolis or whatever but this shit actually really just looks like regular old bread.)

You know he’ll probably freak out and throw you out and you have to steel yourself several times before you force yourself to go find him.

The room in which you left him is still a disaster. He’s managed to relocate to a different corner and the room smells terrible. The underlying scent of omega is still there but it’s soured by the pools of blood that have now either dried or become tacky. He gives you this suspicious look from where he’s half buried in blankets and there’s something in his arms. You can’t see from here but you hope it’s the baby and it’s still alive.

“I brought food,” you say, holding out the plate.

He doesn’t react, just keeps doing that half stare, half glare thing at you.

You glance about. The spot where the baby grubs were the day before is bare of towels or baby grubs. You look about more. There’s his husktop in the corner, and the carnage of used clothes and cups and plates. This place is disgusting, but the babies don’t seem to be anywhere.

“Where are the babies?” you ask.

He lets out a tired hiss. “You don’t get them,” he says. “You don’t get them EVER.”

You stare at him, just long enough to communicate that you think he’s over reacting.  “I don’t want them,” you point out, slowly and deliberately. “Karkat, we need to… take care of them, before they become a biohazard or some shit like that.”

He just looked at you, then returns his attention to the bundle in his arms. You feel relief course through you when the bundle moves and makes a chirping sound. He chirps back at it. He sounds like a cricket or a bird or something. You’re nearly trembling with the impulse to go over and see your baby – his baby – both of yours, whatever, you want to go touch it.  Your hands clench and the plate shakes in them.

“I brought you food,” you say again.

He shifts around a bit but ignores you. The chirping and clicking continues.

You are so fucking close to losing your temper. It’s a strange impulse, you usually have so much control. “Karkat, where are the bodies,” you grind out.

Whoops, that came out sounding a lot angrier than you intended. His head snaps up and he glares at you momentarily before dropping his gaze. “I dropped them off the side of the meteor,” he grumbles. He looks up at you and a defensive expression crosses his face. “What? What else was I supposed to do with them? Leave them here for Gamzee to find? Who knows what the hell he did with the other bodies. I don’t even want to know. Not to mention what you’d do with them…”

“I wouldn’t do anything with them except bury…” you stop and think about it for a moment. “That was probably the best way to deal with them,” you admit. You take a couple steps towards him and hold out the plate. He watches you warily. “Can I see the baby?” you ask. You point with your free hand to the bundle in his arms.

“Grub,” he says automatically.

“Can I see the grub,” you correct dutifully.

He continues to eye you suspiciously for a moment, then reluctantly opens his arms.

You’re there in a flash. You know it’s probably too quick for him, he recoils back from you. You stop cold a few feet away, and it’s just close enough to see that his hands are shaking as he slowly holds out the baby to you. All the guilt from the last couple months comes flooding back to you. “Karkat, I’m not going to hurt you,” you say with a sigh and put the plate down beside him. You take the baby carefully once your hands are free.

The baby is still very much alive, six little legs waving about in the air. He… or she is still as cute as the day before, tuff of black hair on it’s head, with bright red eyes and equally bright red body. “What do they eat?” you ask, wonderingly. “I mean, they need to eat, right?”

Karkat shrugs. “It’s been a very long time and I don’t really remember,” he says. “But, if forced to make a guess, I’d say cave moss… insects, other grubs that don’t make it through the trials, of which there are many.” He seems to lose interest in you and the grub, his head falling against the wall and his eyes sliding away to focus on a random spot elsewhere in the room.

“I should feed him,” you reply.

“Her,” Karkat says.

“How can you even tell?” you ask. Seriously. You can’t even tell. You tug the blanket down to uncover the entire front of its body, but it’s just as uniformly bug-like as the day before.

Karkat shrugs again. “Aggression, biting, I don’t know, I just know, okay?” he’s grouchy, but also sounds so incredibly tired. You’re worried. You hold the baby to your chest and reach out, pressing a couple fingers to the side of his face.

He shuddered and you take your hand back quickly. “Don’t do that,” he says softly. “Please.”

You school a flinch and bite your lip.

“I already have a moirail,” he elaborates. He shuts his eyes. “Had. Not that it matters anymore. Fuck.”

“I can, uh, go get him?” you offer. This is super awkward. This is beyond awkward and is threatening to get into you don’t even know how to deal territory.

“What a wonderful idea,” he says, voice heavy with sarcasm. “Let’s go get the psycho bullshit clown to come take care of my newly hatched grub, maybe he’ll be prime lusus material!”

“You… never know?” you try.

The disgusted look he gives you is amazing, but he doesn’t say anything else. “Here, take her,” you say and hold out the baby. He takes her from you cautiously and you reach down, tearing off a bit of the bread-like stuff you have on the plate. You hold out the piece to the baby and, when Karkat doesn’t move, dangle the bit in front of the baby’s mouth.

“Be careful of the teeth-“ you only just manage to get your fingers away in time before the baby chomps down. You watch in amazement as it eats quickly. You shoot him a look of gratitude for trying to warn you but he’s scowling again and looking at the baby. You pick up another piece of grub loaf and hold it out to him instead of the baby.

He doesn’t move for a long moment, then shifts and takes the piece of food with his free hand. Same as with the first piece, the baby eats quickly and makes a mess all over her tiny body. You grab a towel that doesn’t look too terrible and start brushing the bits of bread off of her.

Karkat lets you. You feel his eyes on you before you’re finished. The next piece of grub loaf you don’t offer the baby, but rather hold it up towards his face. “You should eat,” you say.

He almost looks like he’s going to do it, but then his face scrunches up. “Is that an order?” he hisses.

You roll your eyes. “No, Karkat, it’s a request. You just went through childbirth and you lost a lot of blood. Unless you want to pass out and be totally unable to take care of the baby.”

“Grub.”

“Whatever. Her,” you keep on holding out the food. “Eat something, please. You look like shit.”

“You look shittier,” he retorts.

“You can do better,” you say with a soft tsk. “That was really weak, especially for you.”

“Yeah well, I’m not exactly on the top of my game right now, excuse me, I was kind of busy having YOUR FUCKNG GRUBS,” he yells that last bit and  the grub starts flailing in his arms and making distressed noises. “Now look at what you made me do, you made me scare the grub.”

“Baby.”

“Grub! If she looks like a fucking grub, and talks like a fucking grub, then she IS a fucking grub!”

“Baby is a word that can refer to any and all newly born animals, ergo, she is a baby,” you reason.

“You’re an enormous douche who knows absolutely nothing about trolls, don’t even talk to me, I TRIED TO TELL YOU, BUT NO, YOU WOULDN’T LISTEN, YOU NEVER LISTEN, YOU NEVER-“ the baby started making distressed crying noises halfway through that so you do the only logical thing that comes to mind. You stuff the remaining bread in Karkat’s mouth.

He can’t talk now, though you half expect him to spit it out and keep screaming. Instead, to your relief, he starts chewing and swallows it. By the time he’s done you have the grub baby safely back in your arms, and she’s staring up at you and giggling and clicking.

“I hate you,” he mutters, once he’s swallowed his mouthful.

“Established that already,” you reply mildly. “She’s adorable,” you say and you’re surprised to find you mean it. She’s still undeniably a troll, half troll or not she looks a hell of a lot more like her omega mother, but you suppose it’s because she passes the universal law of babies: all babies are cute, no matter what. A thought occurs to you. “Should I find milk? Human babies drink milk.”

“Probably because they’re weak and useless and don’t have any fucking teeth,” Karkat mutters. He’s back to laying his head against the wall with his eyes half closed. “Have you seen her mouth.”

“Point taken,” you reply. You start to get up and reconsider, then carefully place the baby – _the grub_ , next to him. “Get some rest,” you say. “I’m going to clean. Unless you want to relocate to somewhere that isn’t so gross?”

He growls at you, but there isn’t really any malice behind it. “Suit yourself,” you say. You shrug and get to your feet.

.

You don’t know how much time has passed, not really. It’s strange, but just being here and smelling his scent has calmed you down in ways you hadn’t expected. He’s curled up in the corner with the baby, ignoring you as obviously as can be, and you’ve made great progress on the room, and you think you might actually even be a bit happy. It all goes to shit when you pick up his troll laptop.

It moves in your hands and you nearly drop it again. “What?” you begin, as the lid flips open. A sound that you recognize because you’ve been fucking Terezi for almost a year reaches your ears, microseconds before the picture computes in your brain.

Troll porn. You stare, horrified, as two trolls on the screen engage in rapid coupling and the only thing you can think of is how gross sex is when you’re not the one having it. Hell, sex is kind of gross even when you ARE involved. Guess you do still have some hang ups when it comes to that area. “What… Karkat,” you begin and turn.

You expect him to be mortified but instead you see he is looking at you from the corner he’s shoved himself into with a questioning expression on his face.

Oh, you forgot. Trolls. They don’t have hang ups when it comes to sex, only abject terror when it comes to having sex with YOU. Apparently.

Sure enough his face suddenly darkens. “Don’t get any ideas,” he says.

You really do drop the laptop now, though it’s resilient and keeps on playing troll porn. “Dude, you just pushed a bunch of babies and a shit ton of blood out of your troll ladybits, I’m not about to try to do _anything_ with you even if I WERE interested.”

He gives a tired hiss that sounds more like agreement than anything else.

You sigh and glance back at the laptop screen. There’s something weird about it, though it takes a few moments to process what it is. The one troll is a bit bigger than the other, and he’s definitely the aggressor. His ears are different than Karkat’s… or Terezi’s or Kanaya’s. And he’s… “Is he KNOTTING him?!” you demand to know.

He lets out a low moan and hits the side of his head with his fist a couple times, gently, but enough to get his point across.

Okay, fine. Karkat was watching omega porn. Er… you’re not sure what to do with this information, besides the fact that it makes you feel somewhat uncomfortable. You turn back to the screen and somehow you can’t bring yourself to look away. “Dude,” you breathe after a moment. “That’s really, uh…”

Violent. You want to say. Fucked up is another word for it. You know they’re an entire different alien race and all that but there is a great deal of biting and scratching and screaming going on. It makes what you did with Karkat a few months back look like the most vanilla thing that ever happened ever. The biting is done where it’s supposed to be, in the neck area, but the weirdly finned troll just keeps going, biting the omega troll everywhere. “Are they supposed to be all hate-sexing it up or something?” you ask. “That’s a lot of blood right there.”

Karkat lets out a little snort from behind you. “After all this time and you’re still astoundingly closed minded when it comes to anyone other than yourself,” he says.

You give him an unimpressed look, and he looks away first. “No,” he says finally. “It’s not the same as quadrants. It’s a fucking movie so they’ll probably go red to make every wiggler watching feel better about themselves, but that’s claiming. He owns him. Bright red fake pity until he gets bored and culls him…” he stops abruptly. “Why am I telling you this, like you even fucking care.”

You look back at the screen with an increasingly uneasy feeling. The coupling is still pretty violent and the entire “culling” comment doesn’t bode well for your entire situation. “I… you don’t think I’m going to try to _kill_ you, do you?”

He lets out a hiss. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, will you stop that,” you snap without intending to. You take a deep calming breath before you continue. “Look, in case it escaped your notice, I’m HUMAN. Humans don’t do that. Well, I mean, we do the sex thing, and the claiming thing sometimes, but there’s no ‘culling’ allowed. Ever. You’re not my sex slave or someone I’m going to just off or whatever you’ve put in your head by watching shit like this,” no matter how educational it has been you deliberately reach down and shut the lid of his troll laptop. The porn stops, thankfully, sounds included.

He gives you a deeply suspicious look as you walk over to him. You want to shake him until he regains some of his senses. You also know that categorically that would be a very bad idea. Instead you do something that feels really weird to you, you sit down next to him. Instead of patting him on the face (right, not a moirail) you lean over and kiss him on the cheek. He doesn’t move.

When you pull away you can see a fading terror being quickly replaced with suspicion. The suspicion doesn’t fade when you lean over and kiss him again, this time on the lips. VERY GENTLY. You don’t want to spook him and you kind of want to show him the exact opposite of what you just saw on the screen.

He gives you a deeply unhappy look when you pull away. His lip curls up after a moment and you think he’s going to yell at you, but instead he looks down. “You can, you know,” he says, very quietly, so quietly that you can barely hear.

“Can what?” you reply mildly.

“Pail me whenever you want,” he grumbles.

“I’m not going to do that,” you reply.

He seems to consider, then nods sharply. “What if I go into heat again?” he asks.

You shrug. “I told you last time, I practice better self control and ask Rose to tie me up or something,” you reply. “Karkat, I’m even less eager than you to repeat our entire encounter, I think that was one of the worst things that have ever happened to me, and trust me, I’ve been through a lot,” you make a face. Growing up with Bro was definitely an experience.

He flinches again, hugely. “I didn’t mean to make it so bad…” he begins and you cut him off quickly.

“It wasn’t horrible because of you,” you say. “It was horrible because you didn’t want it.”

He looks back up at you and you wonder if his eyes have always been this big. His ample eyebrows fly together.  “I did, however you might think I didn’t…”

“Hormones, chemistry, heat. You didn’t ask to go into heat,” you explain.

“Landdwellers…”

“Karkat, I don’t care,” you cut him off and he shuts up abruptly. “What matters is we both feel pretty shitty about it, and it’s not going to happen again,” you gesture to the baby grub, it looks like she is sleeping now in his arms. “What matters now is taking care of her, she deserves parents.”

He glances down at the baby and looks uncomfortable. “Grubs don’t even have parents,” he mutters.

“Well, ours will,” you reply, and mean it completely.

He looks too tired to argue any longer. “Fine, whatever,” he says and shrugs, but you can tell he agrees… just the fact that he keeps holding her to his chest means something.

You sit there for quite a while, before silently getting up and finishing cleaning the room. There is a pile of trash for the incinerator by the time you’re done, sitting by the door and he puts up with you checking the blankets all around him to make sure he’s surrounded by only somewhat clean ones.

“I’ll take a bunch of trash with me when I leave,” you say quietly once you are finished.

He shrugs.

“I’ll bring back food for you and her tomorrow,” you add. “You might wanna take a shower.”

He glares at you, but it doesn’t seem to be as fierce as the day before or even earlier when you first showed up. He drops his gaze after a moment. “Fine,” he mutters.

“Thanks,” you say and straighten. You heave a sigh and run a hand through your hair before realizing you’ve been touching all sorts of nasty things. You’ll need a shower too, ugh. “I’ll see you later,” you add before turning away from him.

He doesn’t reply, but you’re fairly sure he watches your back as you leave.

Once outside of the room and down the hall far enough that you’re pretty sure he can’t hear you drop your armloads of trash and let out a low groan, slumping against the wall.

This is hard. This is probably the hardest shit you’ve ever had to deal with, up to and including Bro’s death in the game. To make it worse you absolutely have no one to blame but yourself. You did this; you need to make it right, no matter how difficult he’s going to be about it. You let out another soft groan and get back up, picking the trash up as you do so. Yeah, leaning against walls and wallowing in self pity is not going to help anything. You’ve got to get it together…

You’re a father now, after all.

.

You dump the trash and almost make it back to the common area when you’re stopped in your tracks by Rose. She’s smiling, but the smile is strained and her hands are clasped behind her back. She also looks more sober than usual.

“Hello, Dave,” she says.

“What is it?” you ask her. She looks weird. Why? You look her over. Her shirt is wrinkled and looks like it was hastily pulled on. Her cheeks are flushed, is that why? Was she…?

She brings her hands out from behind her back. She’s holding what looks like thickly knitted rope, all in purple and black in an especially eye pleasing pattern. “I think you and I need to have a little talk.”

Oh. Your brain goes into overdrive, trying to figure that out, moments before you inhale deeply and you figure out what this is all about without even having to ask. It’s an omega you smell, another one of them is in heat. It’s not hard to figure out which one. Kanaya. Rose would have an invested interest in keeping you away from her kind of sort of not really troll girlfriend.

You hold up your hands. “Okay, look, I know this is part of the deal but I just became a father yesterday and Karkat’s still angry at me and I need to take care of him…”

“Sorry, Dave,” she said sweetly. “I’m afraid you’re not exactly trustworthy when it comes to not placing your lower appendages in places they don’t belong.”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” you begin to walk backwards towards your room as she advances on you. “Let me at least take a shower first,” you say, trying to keep your voice stable. You’re almost at your room. “It’s going to be gross, trust me, you don’t want to tie me down right now, I’m disgusting.”

She looks at you and her eyes narrow.

“Please,” you add.

“Fine, you have five minutes, use them wisely,” she says and waves you off. You give her a grateful look and dodge into the bathroom.

As you scrub off you try to stop yourself from panicking in your head. You told him you’d go back tomorrow. What is he going to think if you don’t show up for three days straight. What if he comes looking for you?!

“Rose, you need to tell Karkat where I am,” you say as you step outside of the bathroom clad in nothing but your underwear. It’s embarrassing but there is really no point in wearing clothes if an omega is in heat, you’re going to be sweaty and gross and hard in no time.

Rose shakes her head as she leads you over to the bed and has you lie down on your back. “I’m not sure Karkat will appreciate knowing what is happening with you,” she says honestly as she begins to tie you up. “But I’ll let Terezi know of your predicament. She’s agreed to be in charge of you. She’ll stop by with food later and if you’re very good she’ll untie you to let you use the facilities. We don’t want you peeing the bed. How embarrassing that would be for you.”

Your eyes widen. Shit, you hadn’t even thought about stuff like that. “Rose, wait…” you begin but she’s already heading for the door. She does turn as she reaches it and there is a serious expression on her face.

“I really am sorry, Dave,” she says, and it sounds sincere. “This is exceptionally bad timing,” her eyes are grave as she gives me this assessing look, then quietly leaves the room.

… Shit.

.


End file.
